PDF All-in-One Processing Guide
Overview
This guide covers comprehensive PDF processing operations including conversion to images. For advanced features, see REFERENCE.md.
Workspace Directory: <current_workspace>/pdf-all-in-one-workspace/
Quick Start
from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter
# Read a PDF
reader = PdfReader("document.pdf")
print(f"Pages: {len(reader.pages)}")
# Extract text
text = ""
for page in reader.pages:
text += page.extract_text()
PDF to Image Conversion
Convert PDF Pages to PNG/JPG
from pdf2image import convert_from_path
import os
# Configuration
pdf_path = "input.pdf"
output_dir = "pdf-all-in-one-workspace/output_images"
os.makedirs(output_dir, exist_ok=True)
# Convert PDF to images
images = convert_from_path(pdf_path, dpi=150)
# Save each page as PNG
for i, image in enumerate(images):
output_path = f"{output_dir}/page_{i+1}.png"
image.save(output_path, "PNG")
print(f"Saved: {output_path}")
print(f"Total pages converted: {len(images)}")
Convert with Specific Page Range
from pdf2image import convert_from_path
# Convert only pages 1-5
images = convert_from_path("document.pdf",
dpi=200,
first_page=1,
last_page=5)
for i, image in enumerate(images):
image.save(f"pdf-all-in-one-workspace/page_{i+1}.jpg", "JPEG", quality=95)
Prerequisites
# Install Python library
pip install pdf2image
# Install system dependency (poppler)
# Ubuntu/Debian:
sudo apt-get install poppler-utils
# CentOS/RHEL:
sudo yum install poppler-utils
# macOS:
brew install poppler
Python Libraries
pypdf - Basic Operations
Merge PDFs
from pypdf import PdfWriter, PdfReader
writer = PdfWriter()
for pdf_file in ["doc1.pdf", "doc2.pdf", "doc3.pdf"]:
reader = PdfReader(pdf_file)
for page in reader.pages:
writer.add_page(page)
with open("merged.pdf", "wb") as output:
writer.write(output)
Split PDF
reader = PdfReader("input.pdf")
for i, page in enumerate(reader.pages):
writer = PdfWriter()
writer.add_page(page)
with open(f"pdf-all-in-one-workspace/page_{i+1}.pdf", "wb") as output:
writer.write(output)
Extract Metadata
reader = PdfReader("document.pdf")
meta = reader.metadata
print(f"Title: {meta.title}")
print(f"Author: {meta.author}")
print(f"Subject: {meta.subject}")
print(f"Creator: {meta.creator}")
Rotate Pages
reader = PdfReader("input.pdf")
writer = PdfWriter()
page = reader.pages[0]
page.rotate(90) # Rotate 90 degrees clockwise
writer.add_page(page)
with open("rotated.pdf", "wb") as output:
writer.write(output)
pdfplumber - Text and Table Extraction
Extract Text with Layout
import pdfplumber
with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf:
for page in pdf.pages:
text = page.extract_text()
print(text)
Extract Tables
with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf:
for i, page in enumerate(pdf.pages):
tables = page.extract_tables()
for j, table in enumerate(tables):
print(f"Table {j+1} on page {i+1}:")
for row in table:
print(row)
Advanced Table Extraction
import pandas as pd
with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf:
all_tables = []
for page in pdf.pages:
tables = page.extract_tables()
for table in tables:
if table:
df = pd.DataFrame(table[1:], columns=table[0])
all_tables.append(df)
if all_tables:
combined_df = pd.concat(all_tables, ignore_index=True)
combined_df.to_excel("pdf-all-in-one-workspace/extracted_tables.xlsx", index=False)
reportlab - Create PDFs
Basic PDF Creation
from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter
from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas
c = canvas.Canvas("pdf-all-in-one-workspace/hello.pdf", pagesize=letter)
width, height = letter
c.drawString(100, height - 100, "Hello World!")
c.drawString(100, height - 120, "This is a PDF created with reportlab")
c.line(100, height - 140, 400, height - 140)
c.save()
Subscripts and Superscripts
from reportlab.platypus import Paragraph
from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet
styles = getSampleStyleSheet()
chemical = Paragraph("H<sub>2</sub>O", styles['Normal'])
squared = Paragraph("x<super>2</super> + y<super>2</super>", styles['Normal'])
Command-Line Tools
pdftotext (poppler-utils)
# Extract text
pdftotext input.pdf output.txt
# Extract text preserving layout
pdftotext -layout input.pdf output.txt
# Extract specific pages
pdftotext -f 1 -l 5 input.pdf output.txt
qpdf
# Merge PDFs
qpdf --empty --pages file1.pdf file2.pdf -- merged.pdf
# Split pages
qpdf input.pdf --pages . 1-5 -- pages1-5.pdf
# Rotate pages
qpdf input.pdf output.pdf --rotate=+90:1
# Remove password
qpdf --password=mypassword --decrypt encrypted.pdf decrypted.pdf
pdftk
# Merge
pdftk file1.pdf file2.pdf cat output merged.pdf
# Split
pdftk input.pdf burst
# Rotate
pdftk input.pdf rotate 1east output rotated.pdf
pdfimages - Extract Images from PDF
# Extract all images as JPG
pdfimages -j input.pdf pdf-all-in-one-workspace/output_prefix
Common Tasks
Extract Text from Scanned PDFs (OCR)
import pytesseract
from pdf2image import convert_from_path
images = convert_from_path('scanned.pdf')
text = ""
for i, image in enumerate(images):
text += f"Page {i+1}:\n"
text += pytesseract.image_to_string(image)
text += "\n\n"
print(text)
Add Watermark
from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter
watermark = PdfReader("watermark.pdf").pages[0]
reader = PdfReader("document.pdf")
writer = PdfWriter()
for page in reader.pages:
page.merge_page(watermark)
writer.add_page(page)
with open("pdf-all-in-one-workspace/watermarked.pdf", "wb") as output:
writer.write(output)
Password Protection
from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter
reader = PdfReader("input.pdf")
writer = PdfWriter()
for page in reader.pages:
writer.add_page(page)
writer.encrypt("userpassword", "ownerpassword")
with open("pdf-all-in-one-workspace/encrypted.pdf", "wb") as output:
writer.write(output)
Quick Reference
| Task | Best Tool | Command/Code |
|---|
| PDF to Image | pdf2image | convert_from_path(pdf, dpi=150) |
| Merge PDFs | pypdf | writer.add_page(page) |
| Split PDFs | pypdf | One page per file |
| Extract text | pdfplumber | page.extract_text() |
| Extract tables | pdfplumber | page.extract_tables() |
| Create PDFs | reportlab | Canvas or Platypus |
| OCR scanned PDFs | pytesseract | pdf2image + pytesseract |
| Extract images | pdfimages | pdfimages -j input.pdf output_prefix |
| Command line merge | qpdf | qpdf --empty --pages ... |
Workspace Directory Structure
<current_workspace>/
└── pdf-all-in-one-workspace/
├── input/ # Place input PDFs here
├── output_images/ # Converted images output
├── output_pdfs/ # Generated PDFs output
└── temp/ # Temporary files
Note: Always use pdf-all-in-one-workspace/ as the working directory for PDF operations to keep files organized.
Next Steps
- For advanced pypdfium2 usage, see REFERENCE.md
- For JavaScript libraries (pdf-lib), see REFERENCE.md
- For PDF form filling, see FORMS.md
- For troubleshooting guides, see REFERENCE.md
